Cold
by Witticism
Summary: Learn your verbs and nouns.


**Learn your verbs and nouns.**

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Cold: _adj _: 1: Having lost all freshness or vividness through passage of time;

2: Lacking emotion;

3: Not affectionate or friendly; aloof;

4: So intense as to be almost uncontrollable;

5: Dead.

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_Akito likes Yuki._

This is what Shigure says, every week, as he drags a struggling six-year-old Yuki to the stuffy, must-infested room where Akito lives (_v._To reside; dwell)(to ferment alone while everyone else stares). Yuki is too much of a good boy (for _good_ Yuki reads _spineless_), Yuki is too much of a smart boy, Yuki is too much of a mature, handsome and athletic boy, and Yuki is too fucking scared of Akito to say anything.

_He's not well, Yuki, you owe him this much ._

Yuki suspects (_v_. to surmise, imagine)(to question mentally without saying anything because Yuki is too _good_) that Shigure knows exactly how he feels. Shigure grasps his six year old hand in his own, and Shigure is warm; comforting: he smells of ink and silk and octopus and his fingers are rough and callused. So unlike Yuki's, which are finely hewn of ivory snailshell and he smells of soap (so unlike the other boys, but then they're not perfect examples of humanity like our Yuki), or Akito's, which have a coppery-metal tang Yuki has only smelt in fights or accidents, and which are garishly embroidered with red lacing around the tips. Almost as if Akito spends his time scrabbling at the floor (or the walls, or the dirt, or the loosely-held edges of his mind).

_I know you don't like him..._

Yuki has learnt to put those thoughts to the back of his mind. After all, so many people hate (_v._ To detest, to feel extreme animosity towards)(to beat someone up just because they're cursed with the spirit of the mouse) him and if he dwelt on that them he'd end up like Akito. Akito hates him, he's pretty sure, because Akito rarely talks when Yuki is on his forced visits and when he does, it is in a bitter snarl. Yuki doesn't know if he should be scared of someone who is only two years older than him, but everyone tiptoes around (ignores, hates, is scared of) Akito, so he should too (because _good_ boys don't break the mould.). Only Shigure is different.

_... but he likes you, Yuki, so please do this for him._

Shigure, as far as Yuki is concerned, is his best friend and he wants to be him when he grows up. Shigure is a dog (_n._ domesticated carnivorous mammal)(man's best friend, even if man doesn't quite understand yet) spirit; and that will tell you a lot about him. But Shigure doesn't care about that kind of thing; Shigure doesn't care that Yuki is a conniving, treacherous mouse. Shigure is like two people in one; he is funny and jokey with Yuki, although he says a lot of stuff Yuki doesn't understand. Yuki doesn't get why high school girls are the best, but Shigure just shushes him and warns him not to tell that silly Hari.

_There's so little we can do to help him, after all..._

Shigure's another reason that Yuki doesn't like Akito. Whenever they go near Akito, Shigure is very sad (_adj._ characterised by sorrow or gloom; depressing)(he clutches Yuki's hand more tightly than Yuki clutches his and speaks with a bitter tone). He turns into the other person. Whenever he talks to Hatori near that place, he doesn't play games with him or joke. Hatori is always there. Yuki has heard him remark that he normally doesn't understand how Shigure can want to be a novelist when he's so goofy, but Hatori has never walked hand-in-hand with Shigure up to Akito's. Yuki understands only basically what a novelist is, but Shigure seems to be the stereotype of a morose novelist when he drops Yuki off at Akito's.

_I'm sorry, Yuki._

Yuki has heard Shigure arguing (_n._ to attempt to prove by reasoning) (trying and trying and trying with no result) with Akito; he asks him what he wants with Yuki and why he doesn't come out to play. Hatori says that Shigure is trying to talk some sense into him, but Yuki can't ask him for details because he is always hurrying somewhere. Hatori is always trying to get somewhere, but Yuki doesn't know where. He asked Shigure once, when he was returning from another unnerving session with Akito, but Shigure says that he's not trying to go anywhere, he's trying to be anywhere. Yuki doesn't understand this, but Shigure just sticks his free hand in his pocket and his chin onto his chest and walks moodily along.

_I'm so sorry._

Shigure's arguments always end with Akito laughing wildly (_adj._ uncivilized or barbarous; savage) (mocking Shigure even though he's trying the most of anyone). Shigure seems to be attempting to convince him of something, but he always fails and walks out with his head bent and maniac, twig-snap-snarls ringing in his ears. Yuki doesn't like this because Shigure is supposed to cheer him up, not the other way around. Yuki wants to know why he doesn't just act like everyone else, because it seems that every time they go to visit, Shigure leaves a piece of his heart caught on the twisted thorns of Akito's psyche. When he comes to pick Yuki up, he goes to pay his respects to Akito, but as soon as he comes out he kneels in front of Yuki and examines him very closely, his nose almost brushing Yuki's chin. Yuki doesn't know why he's doing this; and Shigure never tells him, because he rarely speaks around Akito.

_I'm so..._

And, of course, time goes by Yuki gets older and has friends (_n._ person whom one knows, likes, and trusts) (people who talk and laugh and don't have wild, feral, scary looks in their eyes) other than Akito. Shigure gets published and laughs a lot and spends a lot of time trying to get Hatori and Akito to as well. Akito gets older, too, and he grows more possessive and bestial. And, of course, they don't change that much: Yuki is still a damn traitor mouse, Shigure still gives and gives, and Akito still demands to see Yuki. Then one day Yuki is hugged by a girl and everything goes to hell. Akito calls Hatori, and Yuki stops considering him a friend, or rather, he puts him on the same level of friendship as Akito, because Yuki is too young to realise that Hatori is more like him than he knows. Shigure, while inspecting Yuki, finds what he considers the inevitable: blossoms of plum-flavoured bruises around his chin and lip. Shigure gets mad then, and Yuki is scared because Shigure mad is worse than Akito mad or Hatori mad.

_Itried, I really did, Yuki_.

Shigure stamps back into the house to talk (_v._ to gain, influence, or bring into a specified state by talking) (yell in increasingly ragged tones at an angry, unrepetant, shrill voice that is determined to brush off everything offered to him) with Akito, and when he comes out he announces that they're leaving. Hatori trails after him, unsure for once, but Shigure pushes him back with the most violent gesture Yuki has ever seen him make and snaps that he can't deal with it. Yuki hears him say that he's sick of the Sohma family and their disgusting way, and that he's tried more than they will ever know, but he has no support and he can't just sit around while Akito continues on his merry way into an abyss of hate. They leave the next day, Shigure and Yuki. Yuki is white-eyed and white-faced, and Shigure is grimly set in determination.

_He's the leader, so in the end, I have to do what he says. If he wants to rot away, I have to let him._

Yuki is now sixteen and found photographs of this time when he was looking for his old geography notebook. He doesn't have nightmares about that time, any more, not often, but when he looks at these pictures he sees that Shigure was sharper of cheekbone then; bones that shouldn't have poked through his skin. Yuki didn't appreciate that Shigure was trying to talk Akito out of his doom; he didn't understand that Shigure was actually trying, unlike his brother, who opted out, or Kyo who will say everything and do nothing, or Hatori who feels, if possible, a more potent cocktail of pity and anger than Shigure and manages to keep it all contained. Yuki still doesn't see why they have to do what Akito says. He understands the nature of the sacrifice Akito is making; but Yuki has been lucky. He has lost friends and he has been slapped around but his spirit has not been attacked, like Kyo's, he has not lost his love like Hatori, he was not driven out like Shigure. And yet Yuki thinks he is a coward, just like Hatori does. Just like Shigure, when it comes down to it, and Hatsuharu, and Kyo, and Tohru and Kisa and

Yuki wonders if he should show these to Shigure, but he reflects that, of all the people Shigure was trying to save (Yuki, Akito, Hatori, Ayame, every damn Sohma who didn't appreciate the sacrifice Akito was forced into making), he hasn't succeeded in one damn case. Yuki knows that Shigure realises this, and he thinks that Shigure probably regards this house as an escape: a testament to the fact that the novelist wasn't strong enough.

And Yuki feels sorry for struggling against his hand all those years ago.

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**A/N: I spent so long putting in all those tags, and then I noticed the new setup and took an equally long amount of time removing them all.**


End file.
